Letter from the Publisher: Why are social purpose organizations and their funders so uncomfortable talking about wages?

This year I’ll take home a bit over $90,000 in annual salary. 

Last year, the 3rd year for Future of Good, I took home about $75,000. The year before that, I took home $24,000 as an annual salary and lived off my partner’s income. In our first year, I didn’t take a salary, struggled to pay bills and used a line of credit to cover essential costs. 

It’s super uncomfortable, vulnerable, and embarrassing to share how I lived, and what I took home in our first couple of years, but we’re a social purpose startup and mine is a typical journey for founders.

But is this narrative — ”It sucks, but it’s typical” — a cop-out?

Cop-out or not, it’s the unfortunate reality for a significant number of social purpose organizations from coast-to-coast-to-coast, no matter their age, for all their workers. There is no shortage of data to show that a